yes its true, i just found this message on their website and I must say its a very strange thing to do and given their reasoning "to broaden the bands fanbase" its seems to me misjudged, unless of course a certain other Mr Morse is coming back albeit briefly. What say you?

January 28, 2011

Hi Everybody

As
you probably know, Spock's Beard is scheduled to play the High Voltage
Festival in London on July 24 as support for Jethro Tull. We are also
working on a few more UK dates to go along with that to be played in the
days after the High Voltage Festival.

The dilemma
we are faced with is this: Nick may or may not be able to do these
dates due to his commitment with Cirque du Soleil. He won't know for
sure whether or not he'll be able to do this for some time, but we
thought rather than wait we should disclose the fact now that we may
need to have someone else front the band for these shows.

Normally
in this situation we wouldn't even take a gig with this possibility
hanging over it, but in this case we'd be absolute morons not to take
this opportunity to present ourselves to lots of new prog fans that have
never heard us before. This type of show is something that we've been
striving towards literally for years and is a rare opportunity for us to
increase our fan base.

While
this may be a massive disappointment to some of you, the reality is
that for the people who we really need to present ourselves to (the
people who don't know much about us), and in fact the reason why we took
this gig in the first place, we will be Spock's Beard and we
will hopefully make a good enough impression on them that they will add
themselves to the ranks of our beloved supporters.

(By the way, the promoters were informed of this possibility before we even accepted the gig and they are OK with it.)

Our
goal is not to trick anyone or do anything underhanded, nor are we in
any way considering a personnel change. We are simply trying
to increase our fan base with this opportunity, and we sincerely hope
that you understand.

It'll be the first time in about 4 years that SB have played on these shores (last years Euro tour ended up being more a case of Germany and a few other places) and to be honest they're great live so with or without Nick I'd go and see them if they played close by.

It'll be the first time in about 4 years that SB have played on these shores (last years Euro tour ended up being more a case of Germany and a few other places) and to be honest they're great live so with or without Nick I'd go and see them if they played close by.

^It wouldn't be just one gig. They are just announcing it now so there are no surprises. It maybe a close to the event call whether nick can get the time off. Dave Meros posted this over at Progressive ears:

Hi, Time to answer a couple questions - -

First, before we get all excited, let's wait and give Nick a chance to find out if he can do this UK trip with us or not.

He does have a break between Cirque shows right then, which is very good. However, he may have some obligations during that time or his schedule may change, and no one can give him any definite answers about that right now, so we're kind of in limbo for an indefinite period of time. .. hence the announcement.

The announcement on the SB website was just a disclosure of a possibility. We didn't want to get a month away from the trip, find out that Nick could not do it, and then announce it after people had bought tickets and made travel plans.

Yes, we do want to focus more on the newer material. We are the Spock's Beard of the last few CDs and that's what we want to sell.

We have a sub lined up already just in case, he's AWESOME and perfect for the gig, and I'm not going to tell you who it is. ;-) There is no benefit to anybody by telling you who this is until we actually know that the situation requires this person to step in.

Hi Everybody,

It's
official! World class singer/guitarist TED LEONARD {Enchant / Thought
Chamber} will be filling in for Nick at both Sweden Rock on June 11th
and the High Voltage Festival in London on July 24th.

Ted is a great guy and an amazing talent, and we know he will do a fantastic job with our songs. This promises to be a great ...opportunity
to introduce Spock's Beard to lots of people who may not be familiar
with us. We guarantee performances that will uphold the high standards
you know us for.

We are really looking forward to these shows and we hope to see you all there. Thanks for supporting the Beard! \m/...\m/

Cheers!

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot create polls in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum